After Hours Summary: CSWC +3.1%, NDSN +1.7%, ZM +0.7% up on earnings; GH -7.1% down after filing stock offerings; RNR -3.7% lower after agreeing to acquire AIG's treaty reinsurance businessAfter Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: CSWC +3.1%, NDSN +1.7%, ZM +0.7%
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: BPMC +3.1% (FDA approves AYVAKIT), TERN +3% (to present TERN-601 data), TGNA +3% (announces $300 mln ASR program and dividend increase), LFCR +3% (enters into new financing with Alcon), PEB +2.1% (provides operating update), APLE +1.3% (extends repurchase program), GD +1.2% (U.S. Navy contract modification), BRO +1% (to acquire Kentro Capital), MODG +0.7% (repurchased shares), TRVI +0.5% (publishes positive data from CANAL trial), HLIT +0.3% (appoints new CFO), AIG +0.3% (to sell Validus Re to RenaissanceRe Holdings), CSX +0.2% reaches tentative agreement over sick leave benefits)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: LU -0.6%
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: GH -7.1% (files mixed shelf; also files $250 mln stock offering), RNR -3.7% (to acquire AIG's treaty reinsurance business; files mixed shelf, stock offering), RYAN -1.5% (stock offering), EFC -0.9% (increases repurchase authorization), SWN -0.1% (files mixed shelf)
The UK and European electric vehicle trade
Hoping for delays to post-Brexit rules is not a strategy, particularly for British automakers
Everyone wants a slice of the electric vehicle market. Carmaking is not only a big employer, it has also long symbolised a nation’s manufacturing prowess, from British Minis to Italian Ferraris. As the sector goes electric to meet climate change targets, the US, EU and China have been thrust into a race to build up domestic EV production capabilities. In the frenzy of subsidies and deals, electric automakers need to decide how best to locate their complex supply chains.
Last week, global carmaker Stellantis — which owns brands like Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroën — warned UK lawmakers that it may have to close one of its electric van factories. It fears that production will soon cease to be competitive. From 2024, as part of the post-Brexit trading agreement, EVs traded between the UK and EU will need to have 45 per cent of their parts sourced from either region, or face 10 per cent tariffs. British and European carmakers say they are not ready, and worry about being displaced in each other’s market.
While the so-called “rules of origin” regulations were clear when the Brexit deal was struck, carmakers claim Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and supply chain upheaval since have altered cost dynamics. Battery factories on both sides of the channel are also being set up later than expected when the rules were set. The rule itself acts as an important stick to both auto- and policymakers to invest in building a thriving domestic EV ecosystem. But if manufacturers feel this is not in place, the rules also risk denting the sector just as the US Inflation Reduction Act and China are luring them away. It could even mean EVs traded between the UK and Europe face tariffs, while petrol vehicles would not, keeping EVs more expensive for longer. That would not be ideal for the green agenda.
At this stage an extension of the 2024 deadline, as firms are calling for, may make sense. But carmakers and governments must not use it as an excuse to delay action further. Indeed, the UK — which is further behind Europe in the EV space — must recognise that the tariffs are just one element of the large effort needed to build a competitive EV system.
Batteries, which face local content rules too, comprise a significant share of EVs’ total cost. But the UK has only a handful of battery gigafactories in its prospective pipeline, compared with Europe’s 30. Attempts to woo battery makers from Asia and nurture homegrown ones have fallen flat — Britishvolt collapsed in January. Batteries also need critical minerals and refining processes in place. The US and EU are throwing money at this. The UK is trailing, right across the supply chain, even before factoring in broader issues like its high energy and logistics costs.
Developing a thriving EV and battery industry requires long-term and joined-up thinking across sectors. To date that is lacking in the UK. The government shuns the notion of an industrial strategy altogether, and recent political upheaval has not helped. It has been left chasing standalone deals and lobbying Brussels — an ineffectual approach compared to the billions being promised in the US and Europe. For electric automakers, Britain is not looking like a serious long-term bet.
In the end, hoping the European Commission delays the regulations is not a strategy, for either UK or European carmakers. The EU may have an incentive to postpone tougher requirements, being further ahead of the UK in the sector. But, equally, it could judge that with the damage likely to be greater on the UK than its own car industry, given the UK’s greater reliance on auto exports to the bloc, keeping it in place could help draw business across the Channel. Either way, the global battle for EVs is shaping up to be cut-throat and those that lack a strategic approach will be left behind.
Exxon Joins Hunt for Lithium in Bet on EV Boom
Oil giant quietly laid plans this year for producing mineral in Arkansas
Exxon Mobil XOM 0.46%increase; green up pointing triangle is bracing for a future far less dependent on gasoline by drilling for something other than oil: lithium.
The Texas oil giant recently purchased drilling rights to a sizable chunk of Arkansas land from which it aims to produce the mineral, a key ingredient in batteries for electric cars, cellphones and laptops, according to people familiar with the matter.
Lithium is far removed from the fossil-fuel business, which has powered Exxon’s XOM 0.46%increase; green up pointing triangle profits for more than a century, and signals the company’s acknowledgment that demand for internal combustion engines could soon peak, the people said. It would also mark a return for the company to an industry it helped pioneer almost 50 years ago.
Exxon bought 120,000 gross acres in the Smackover formation of southern Arkansas from an exploration company called Galvanic Energy, according to some of the people. The price tag was more than $100 million, people familiar with the matter said, a relatively small transaction for a company of Exxon’s size.
The new venture doesn’t amount to a significant strategic shift for Exxon, which has said it is confident that oil and gas will be needed for decades. But Exxon is looking to gain a foothold in a region believed to contain vast lithium reserves, both to produce the mineral and to test the viability of extraction technologies.
Exxon could begin drilling on the prospect in the coming months, people familiar with the matter said, and could expand its operations if it proves profitable.
Galvanic said last year that a third-party consultant it hired estimated the prospect could have 4 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, enough to power 50 million EVs. Extracting lithium from brine involves drilling for, piping and processing liquids, processes in which oil-and-gas companies have long developed expertise, making them well suited to produce the mineral, lithium and oil executives said.
Exxon projected last year that light-duty vehicle demand for internal combustion engine fuels could peak in 2025, while EVs, hybrids, and vehicles powered by fuel cells could grow to more than 50% of new car sales by 2050. The company has also projected the world’s fleet of EVs could climb to as much as 420 million by 2040, up from 3 million in 2017.
Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods said last year that fossil-fuel demand would remain robust for decades, driven by the production of chemicals and heavy transportation and industry.
Lithium production would also diversify Exxon’s portfolio and expose it to a rapidly growing market. The company is positioning other parts of its business to accommodate electric vehicles. Exxon executives have said many of its chemical products supply EV manufacturers, whose cars are made with plastics and other petroleum products.
The auto industry’s shift to EVs has triggered a race to lock in supplies of lithium and other materials core to battery making, much of which are currently mined and processed outside the U.S. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the lack of a steady pipeline for processed lithium is a major obstacle.
The Biden administration is seeking to encourage domestic production of the metal, despite opposition from environmentalists and others. The Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Biden into law last year includes tax credits covering 10% of the cost of producing critical minerals, including lithium.
The U.S. once was the world’s largest lithium producer, but its output has plummeted, and it is now dependent on other nations such as China for its supply of the mineral. Producing lithium from regions such as Arkansas could help the U.S. meet its domestic needs as well as compete globally, analysts said.
In the 1970s, Exxon played a key role in the foundation of the lithium industry. Exxon chemist Stanley Whittingham won a Nobel Prize in 2019 for helping to develop the lithium ion battery while working at Exxon’s corporate laboratory in Linden, N.J. Exxon began to manufacture the batteries in 1976, but the market ultimately proved too small, so the company ceased making the batteries some years later.
Exxon has plans to spend $17 billion through 2027 on cutting carbon emissions and developing low carbon technologies. Unlike BP or Shell, which are investing heavily in renewable energy, Exxon has said it would limit its clean-energy investments in technologies that hew to its core oil-and-gas business, such as hydrogen and carbon capture. Exxon has never publicly proposed producing lithium as part of its investment plans.
Other large oil producers have been looking at the lithium business. Occidental Petroleum is developing technology to extract lithium from subterranean brine through its subsidiary TerraLithium.
The prospect of EVs dominating public transportation in the coming decades provides a strong incentive for oil-and-gas companies to get in on the lithium business, said Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at investment bank Raymond James. “It’s a classic hedge against the prospect of eventually declining oil demand,” he said.
Southern Arkansas in recent years has emerged as a potential future lithium hub. Smackover brine, a rich broth of saltwater and minerals, has long been known to contain relatively high concentrations of lithium, but new technologies have recently made it possible to extract the metal from the brine in warehouse-size facilities.
The region also offers a favorable permitting framework and existing infrastructure companies can capitalize on, lithium executives said. Over the last century, oil producers drilled thousands of wells in the region to extract crude oil. Special chemical companies, such as Albemarle, have been producing brine suffused with bromine there, a valuable chemical used in agriculture and sanitation.
Canadian company Standard Lithium has been operating a lithium demonstration plant in the region since 2020 at a site owned by German chemical company Lanxess.
So-called direct lithium extraction technologies have yet to be deployed at scale, and it could be years before plants start churning out the mineral commercially, analysts said.
Barron’s Weekend Summary: Energy has taken a central role in global affairs, soaring last year as the war in Ukraine upended the market.
Cover Story:
-Energy has taken a central role in global affairs, soaring last year as the war in Ukraine upended the market. Now, commodity prices are tumbling again, the stocks are wobbling, and an even bigger change—a global transition to clean energy—appears to be around the corner. To understand how all these dynamics will play out in the coming years, Barron’s convened a roundtable of energy experts that met May 9 on Zoom. The group included Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy and Middle East and North Africa research at RBC Capital Markets; Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners; Christyan Malek, global head of energy strategy and head of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa oil and gas equity research at JP Morgan; and Karim Fawaz, director of financial and capital markets at S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Interview:
-See Cover section for this week’s interview feature.
Tech Trader:
-How should investors play the artificial intelligence software mania.
The obvious bets are so well known that it seems everyone owns them. The consensus big winner is Nvidia, which makes graphics processors used to train the large language models at the heart of generative AI. Nvidia shares have more than doubled this year already, and the company now ranks as the fifth most valuable tech stock, ahead of Meta Platforms and Tesla. Microsoft was the market’s first pick on AI software, given its large stake in ChatGPT creator OpenAI and the introduction of AI features into a host of Microsoft applications. The stock is up 33% this year, and has a market value of $2.4T, trailing only Apple. Alphabet shares were shunned earlier this year after Microsoft unveiled an AI-powered version of its Bing search engine. But Alphabet has been investing in AI for at least a decade and recently announced AI advancements of its own. The stock is up 39% in 2023. Also creeping into the discussion: Oracle, which has an agreement to host Nvidia-powered supercomputing services on the Oracle Cloud. Oracle shares are pennies from an all-time high, up 26% for the year.
Then there are the crowd favorite but speculative AI plays: enterprise software maker C3.ai was up 30% this past week; data analytics firm Palantir Technologies was up 23% on the week, while voice-enabled AI play SoundHound rallied 10%. But if AI is going to be world-changing technology along the lines of the internet, the cloud, the smartphone, electricity, and air travel, there have to be other ways to play it, right? Brook Dane, a Goldman Sachs tech portfolio manager, who was a guest this past week on Barron’s Live, our daily webcast and podcast. He’s fully focused on finding the next AI winners even though it’s still early. But, one of his favorites is Marvell Technology (MRVL), which makes chips used in data center connectivity.
The Trader:
-Apple has ruined this market. And it’s the biggest impediment to more gains.
That might seem like an odd thing to say. The S&P 500 index rose 1.6% this past week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 3%. Apple, which was up 1.5% for the week, certainly did its part. But at some point in the past couple of weeks, depending on data providers, Apple’s market capitalization, at $2.76T, topped the combined market cap of the entire Russell 2000RUT –0.62% index of small-cap stocks. Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street’s US SPDR exchange-traded fund business worries that this concentration of gains is “contributing to investor anxiety,” says Arone, adding that it’s why investors have had an uneasy feeling about the market rebound since October.
-Porsche’s stock might prove to be as appealing as the company’s cars. The problem is: which Porsche stock to buy? US investors can be forgiven if that sounds like an odd question. Porsche stock isn’t nearly as straightforward as Ford, GM or Tesla.
There are American depositary receipts of Porsche Automobil but that isn’t Porsche , the car maker. It’s a holding company that owns about 25% of the ordinary stock in Porsche and about 53% of the ordinary stock in Volkswagen. Porsche, the maker of the famous 911, is actually named Dr Ing hc F Porsche AG, though it’s usually just referred to as Porsche. The ticker of the US-listed ADR is DRPRY. The company has 911 million shares outstanding in Germany, a total composed of 455.5 million ordinary shares and 455.5 million preferred shares. In Germany, it trades under the ticker P911. (Clever, huh?)
That’s the one investors uninterested in complexity should consider buying. Though the stock is up roughly 40% from its initial public offering about eight months ago, there’s still room for more gains, if trading in Ferrari. Ferrari sells fewer, more expensive cars than Porsche, but both companies are low-volume, ultra-luxury car makers that have no problem selling out their annual production—and are less impacted by a slowing economy or affordability issues.
Features:
-Negotiations over the debt ceiling resumed late Friday after talks were put on hold earlier in the day, according to The Wall Street Journal. A White House official said negotiators were meeting Friday night on Capitol Hill, the Journal reported. Earlier, Rep. Garret Graves (R., La.) walked out of negotiations with the White House after failing to come to an agreement on raising the debt ceiling. “We’ve decided to press pause because it’s just not productive,” Graves told reporters.
-Tesla investors can feel relieved that their CEO Elon Musk can devote more attention to the cars and less to Twitter, which got a new CEO in the form of Linda Yaccarino. Now they can start thinking about what comes next for Tesla, wwhose shares closed at $180.14, up 1.8% Friday while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively. With Friday’s gain, shares are now up almost $12, or about 7%, since Musk tweeted out on May 11 that he had found a new CEO for Twitter. For the week, shares rose more than 7%, boosted by the company’s annual meeting of shareholders where Musk reaffirmed his commitment to running his car company.
European Trader:
-BT Group said it wants to reduce its workforce by possibly more than 40% by the end of the decade. While the British telecommunications company is not the first to credit artificial-intelligence for enabling mass job cuts, the scale of the reduction could set a new bar for US peers such as AT&T and Verizon. BT said Thursday that its total workforce –including employees and third-party contractors–will fall to between 75,000 and 90,000 by between fiscal 2028 and fiscal 2030, from 130,000 currently. That’s a potential 55,000 workers to go.
CEO Philip Jansen said around 10,000 of the job cuts would be due to automation and digitization, including the use of AI technology.
Emerging Markets:
-Investors who don’t mind playing with some fire may find ways to make some gains in Turkey based on the tried and tested policies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is all but certain to win re-election in the forthcoming runoff vote following the May 14 elections. One way to play Erdogan’s re-election is through the country’s hard-currency bonds, most of which are yielding between 9% to 10% annually. Chances of default look low, even with five more years of Erdogan. “There are other single-B sovereigns out there that offer higher yields, he says, referring to Turkey’s credit rating, one notch into junk. “But they don’t have Turkey’s strong repayment history, favorable public debt ratios, or diversified economy,” says Blaise Antin, head of sovereign research at TCW.
Commodities:
-Gasoline prices are falling fast heading into Memorial Day, but it’s no guarantee that will get more people behind the wheel over the holiday weekend. Demand for gas has been lackluster this year despite the drop in prices, and some experts see little chance of that changing.
At $3.50/gallon, average national gas prices are $1 less than they were a year ago. That milestone has been matched only three times in recent history—during the 2009 recession, the 2015 OPEC supply glut, and the height of Covid in 2020, according to Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at price-comparison company Gas Buddy. In general, oil prices are weak because of slowing demand around the world, as high interest rates and other issues are weighing on economic growth. Products like gasoline and diesel, which were in short supply last year during the early stages of the war in Ukraine, are now less scarce.
Streetwise:
-While ‘green’ hydrogen has produced interesting results in testing, hydrogen exposed stocks have not. The hydrogen hype cycles has focused on consumer uses, like fuel cells for cars. But the one to consider now is more about using industrial-scale hydrogen to clean up fertilizer and steel. And the perks have never been bigger. The US is suddenly offering $100B for clean hydrogen production. That’s a bonanza, or a mirage, depending on the precise definition of clean hydrogen, which, it turns out, lawmakers didn’t quite nail down. But guidance is coming, and projects have begun. Some things aren’t so different. Clean hydrogen’s heyday remains far off. “Broad adoption, in our view, should not take place in the foreseeable future,” wrote a team of JP Morgan analysts this past week. The world’s lightest element is still Hindenburg-ing investor cash. Defiance Next Gen H2HDRO, an exchange-traded fund of clean hydrogen and fuel-cell plays, has lost 69% since launching just over two years ago. This isn’t a criticism of clean hydrogen technology by some cranky stock market scribbler who last studied chemistry a third of a century ago and took to it like a vampire to holy water. It’s a complaint again st the investment case. (That other stuff checks out.)
Changement stratégique au conseil de Casino
L'enseigne est endettée à hauteur de 6,4 milliards d'euros à fin 2022, dont 4,5 milliards sur son activité France.
Thomas Piquemal, représentant de Fimalac, démissionne de son poste d'administrateur du groupe Casino, « à effet immédiat ». Actionnaire à 2,6 % du distributeur, la société de Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière a pris cette décision « afin d'éviter tout risque de conflit d'intérêts dans le cadre de l'étude par le groupe Casino de la proposition de EP Global commerce et de ne gêner en aucune façon les travaux du conseil d'administration », précise le groupe dans un communiqué paru vendredi, confirmant ainsi une information des Échos.
Le 24 avril, le milliardaire tchèque Daniel Kretinsky a proposé à Jean-Charles Naouri, le PDG de Casino, de souscrire à une augmentation de capital de 1,1 milliard d'euros. Il y participerait à hauteur de 750 millions, Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière y apportant, de son côté, 150 millions. Cette augmentation de capital ferait de Daniel Kretinsky le premier actionnaire de Casino. Ce dernier a toutefois conditionné son offre à une « réduction très substantielle de la dette brute non sécurisée du groupe », qui s'élève à 3,6 milliards d'euros. Il serait proposé deux options à ses créanciers non sécurisés : convertir leur dette en capital ou accepter de la céder avec une très forte décote.
Daniel Kretinsky déclenche une bataille pour le contrôle de Casino : https://www.lefigaro.fr/societes/daniel-kretinsky-declenche-une-bataille-pour-le-controle-de-casino-20230424
Casino a sollicité ses créanciers afin qu'ils approuvent la demande d'ouverture d'une procédure de conciliation, préalable à une renégociation de la dette. Les créanciers du groupe ont jusqu'au mardi 23 mai, 17 heures, pour remettre leur réponse. Dans la foulée, le groupe réunira son conseil d'administration pour décider de demander ou non l'ouverture d'une procédure de conciliation auprès du tribunal de commerce. Si c'était le cas, Marc Sénéchal pourrait être nommé conciliateur. Charge à lui, ensuite, de renégocier la dette avec les créanciers et de trouver la meilleure issue possible pour Casino, lourdement endetté. Casino négocie, par ailleurs, une fusion de ses activités française avec Teract. Son PDG souhaite désormais voir les deux offres converger.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Big Money Flows To Water Tech Startup Gradiant
After several weeks of just having one or two rounds of nine figures, this week saw an explosion. Eight rounds hit $100 million or more as big rounds seemed to pour in. No one sector cleaned up, as the money was spread around from cleantech to biotech to fintech to even restaurant-centric software.
1. Gradiant, $225M, cleantech: Gradiant became one of the newest unicorns this week after raising a fresh $225 million in a Series D led by BoltRock Holdings and Centaurus Capital. The water tech startup is now valued at $1 billion. The startup develops technology to reduce water usage and build wastewater treatment systems for companies in the pharmaceutical, semiconductor, food and beverage, and other water-demanding industries. The funding is the largest in the wastewater treatment space, at least since the beginning of 2022. Founded in 2013 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company has now raised more than $392 million, according to Crunchbase.
2. Tipalti, $150M, fintech: Automated payment solution Tipalti raised big this week with a $150 million “incremental growth financing” round, as the company called it. Back in 2021, the Foster City, California-based fintech raised a $270 million Series F funding led by G Squared at a valuation of $8.3 billion. No valuation was given this time around — although that is not unusual in this time of slowing venture funding and declining valuation. The latest round was from JPMorgan Chase Bank and Hercules Capital, which specializes in venture debt, although no distinction between debt and equity was announced by Tipalti. Founded in 2010, Tipalti has now raised about $700 million, according to the company’s release.
3. Restaurant365, $135M, accounting: It’s hard to run a restaurant — as anyone who has watched several reality shows based on doing so knows. Restaurant365 tries to make that a little easier and this week the Irvine, California-based startup added some big-named backers. The company nailed down a $135 million round co-led by KKR and L Catterton. The new round values the company at $1 billion, per its release. Restaurant365 offers enterprise management software for restaurants, helping them take care of accounting, payroll, supply chain and more. The company has surpassed $100 million in revenue and is used in more than 40,000 restaurant locations. Founded in 2011, the company has raised more than $260 million, per Crunchbase.
4. (tied) Avenue One, $100M, property management: New York-based Avenue One also joined the unicorn herd this week with a $100 million raise led by WestCap. The cash infusion gave the company a valuation of $1 billion. The startup, founded in 2020, provides a handful of services to single-family rental investors — such as finding their next property or financing. Institutional investors started buying up single-family homes during the pandemic as interest rates remained low and families sought more space. Even as interest rates have climbed back up, there clearly is still enough interest in the market to mint a property management startup as a unicorn.
4. (tied) Boundless Bio, $100M, biotech: It seems every week a biotech startup or two raise a huge round. This week is no different. First off is Boundless Bio, a clinical stage, next-generation precision oncology startup, which raised a $100 million Series C co-led by Leaps by Bayer and RA Capital Management. The San Diego-based startup is developing therapeutics directed against extrachromosomal DNA for patients with oncogene amplified cancers. In the past, targeted therapies have been mostly ineffective in treating patients with oncogene amplified cancers, according to the company. Founded in 2018, the company has raised more than $250 million, per Crunchbase.
4. (tied) Eagle Eye Networks, $100M, security: When a security company raises a nine-figure round, it is normal to assume it is referring to cybersecurity. However, not in this case. Eagle Eye Networks is an actual physical security company — although with a tech twist. The company offers cloud-based video surveillance. Perhaps not the sexiest of industries, but still a significant market. The Austin, Texas-based startup locked up $100 million in a round led by Japan-based Secom. Founded in 2012, the firm has now raised $195 million, according to Crunchbase.
4. (tied) Ray Therapeutics, $100M, biotech: Another biotech was able to raise a nine-figure round this week. San Francisco-based Ray Therapeutics locked up a $100 million Series A led by Novo Holdings A/S. The startup is looking to restore vision for people with the rare blinding disease retinitis pigmentosa. While some companies are looking to stop the disorder before it results in blindness, Ray differentiates itself by looking into therapeutics to actually bring back vision. Founded in 2021, the company has now raised $110 million, per Crunchbase.
4.(tied) Zip, $100M, procurement: Procurement software certainly is not the sexiest of industries, but there is no denying the need for systems that help companies with the burdensome process of buying new software and hardware. San Francisco-based Zip helps companies do just that and this week it raised a $100 million Series C from investors Y Combinator, CRV and Tiger Global. The startup also bucked the trend of declining valuations. The new cash gives the procurement startup a $1.5 billion post-money valuation. While many companies are seeing stagnant or falling valuations, the new valuation represents a slight bump from its previous $1.2 billion valuation last May after the company raised a $43 million Series B. Zip helps companies with sourcing, approving and paying for needed business tools, ideally helping to streamline the process to make it less taxing. Founded in 2020, Zip has raised $181 million to date, per the company.
9. Nido Biosciences, $87M, biotech: Watertown, Massachusetts-based Nido Biosciences, a biotech startup developing medicines for debilitating neurological diseases, announced it has raised a total of $109 million in seed, and Series A and B financings. Previous SEC filings (here and here) indicate the Series B — led by Bioluminescence Ventures — likely was around $87 million.
10. Quince, $77M, e-commerce: San Francisco-based luxury retailer Quince raised a $77 million Series B led by Wellington Management. Founded in 2018, the company has raised $141.5 million, according to Crunchbase, positioning it for accelerated growth and expansion.
Big global deals
Even though the U.S. saw some big funding rounds, none came close to the biggest this week.
- China fast-fashion startup Shein reportedly raised $2 billion at a $66 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal.